


Now Leasing: New Beginnings

by dragonshost



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: CoLu Week 2018, F/M, Humor, Post-Canon, Romance, lots of headcanons present in here, there are some... things in chapter 4 to consider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 19:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14960772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonshost/pseuds/dragonshost
Summary: Lucy has finally achieved her dream, and finalized the purchase of her family's former home.  When she goes to inspect the Heartfilia mansion, however, she finds some very familiar people already occupying it.





	1. Defect

It was finally done.

With one last flourish of the pen in her cramping hand, Lucy set the writing utensil down with a sigh born of both relief and satisfaction.  The man sitting to her right in the immaculately pressed suit took the papers upon which she’d just placed her final signature, and then passed it off to the equally as well-dressed woman to his right.  Both of their outfits had to have cost twice what Lucy could pull in a year’s worth of jobs on her team, and the commission they were about to earn would be able to put them in at least two more each, easy.

Gathering up enough money had been no easy task.  It had been five years since she’d made the decision to go through with this.  Five years of scraping together every penny and making them count, five years of doing side writing assignments for Sorcerer Weekly (apart from her year of dedicated employment with the booming magazine), and five long, long years of parting with her hard-earned cash to pay for damages that her team perpetrated.

But no more.  Her dream was finally becoming reality.

After a few moments, the woman set her pen to the side and gathered up the documents.  “I’ll make copies for you, and then we’ll be done here.”

Lucy nodded, not trusting her voice.   She wrung her hands a little, and fiddled with her pen while the woman left, not sure what to do with herself.

Her companion smiled kindly at her.  “You’re excited, I take it.”

Again, Lucy nodded.  “Yeah!” she admitted, letting out a shaky laugh.  “A bit nervous, too.  I’ve been saving up a long time to make this happen, so it almost feels like it’ll collapse around me at any time, or something will pop out of the woodwork to destroy it.”  At his incredulous expression, Lucy shrugged helplessly.  “You’d be surprised how often that happens to me.”

He patted her on the shoulder.  “Well, I assure you this is happening.”

Before she could say anything else, the woman returned with copies of the contract neatly stapled together and a polite smile on her face.  “Here you are,” she said, passing the coveted papers to Lucy and a check to the man beside her with his copy.  “How does it feel to be a home owner at last?”

Lucy’s hands shook.  This was it.

Her childhood home was now hers once more.

“It feels amazing,” she breathed out.  “Thank you both for all your help.”  Standing up, she pressed the document to her chest and extended a hand first to the bank representative and then to her agent.  “I really appreciate all you’ve done for me, and with the upkeep of the property all this time.”

Her agent stood up as well.  “Let’s go to the front desk and have them validate your parking.”

Lucy laughed as if that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.  “Thank you, but I actually walked here from the train station, so there’s no need.”

“I’ll walk with you to the exit, then.”

Allowing him to do so, Lucy tried not skip all the way through the building.

They parted ways at the doors, and Lucy began the trek back to Crocus’s train station in the dying light of dusk.  It was a peaceful walk, even for such a busy business area.  Normally she wouldn’t have even considered going to a bank in the country’s capitol to secure a loan, but in the end it had been the correct decision.  No teammates to bother her, and several of her credit references were located in the city besides.

It had all paid off.

And now she would be paying back the loan for the next two or three decades.

But the land she’d grown up on, the house her mother and father had loved, was now legally hers to do with as she pleased.

Lucy hadn’t yet considered what she would do with it, but such decisions could wait for the light of morning.

* * *

 

“I’m a homeowner!” she shouted triumphantly, thrusting her mug of beer high into the air.

A chorus of cheers erupted all around her, all of Fairy Tail happy to drink to their friend’s excitement.

“I’ll drink to that!” yelled Cana, throwing back a hefty swig of her alcohol.

Gray laughed, and rightfully pointed out, “You’ll drink to anything, Cana.”  Then he turned to Lucy and clacked his mug against her.  “Congratulations, Lucy.  You worked hard.”

“Aww, thanks, Gray!  I really, really did.”

That garnered a laugh from him as he took the stool next to her.  “So, what are your big plans for the new place?  If memory serves, that place is freaking humongous.”

She hummed in thought.  “Not sure yet.  First I want to clean the place up a bit, maybe see what all got left behind when the creditors swept through the place.  You know, since we didn’t exactly get a good look when we were there investigating the Infinity Clock.  After that… we’ll see.”

“I guess that makes sense.  And we did kind of wreck the place when we were there.”

Lucy grimaced.  “Don’t remind me.  I never heard the end of it from that realtor and had to pay back all the damages for that.  Do you have any idea how long that took?  Especially since _none of you helped out_.”

Throwing up his hands in surrender, the ice mage folded like soggy paper at her growl.  “I’m sorry!  I don’t know what else to tell you!”

“You better pray there isn’t any leftover damage or defects from that,” she continued, easing off of him.  It had been a long time ago, and it _had_ been somewhat justified at the time.  Since they had been attacked, and all.  (Now that she thought about it, she totally should have asked Zentopia for some reimbursement!  Dammit, why hadn’t she thought of that years ago?!)

Lucy wasn’t truly angry with Gray, or the rest of her team about it.  She had already sprung for an inspection before signing the paperwork, anyway.  It hadn’t turned up anything major.  But damn if it wasn’t fun to put the fear of god into her team sometimes, just as a general reminder to beware.

As the danger fled her gaze, the ice mage lowered his hands.  “Natsu’s still pouting, I see.”  Gray rolled his eyes at the sulking form of the dragon slayer a little distance away.  “It’s not as if you’re going to quit the guild even if you do move in there, right?”

“No way am I quitting Fairy Tail.  I would miss you all way too much!”  Lucy took a hefty drink from her mug.  “But if I do decide to live there, it’ll be a bit more of a commute.  So I might have to come in less.”  That was a major factor in her reluctance to commit to the move, truthfully.  Her wallet, on the other hand, really wanted it to happen, as affording the mortgage payments in addition to the rent for her apartment in Magnolia would be difficult, to say the least.

A firm hand clamped down suddenly on her shoulder, making Lucy yelp in surprise and spill some of her drink in her lap.  “A wise decision,” Erza informed her, completely ignorant of how badly she’d just frightened her friend.

Moving out to the country-side just got a little more appealing.

Lucy internally scolded herself a little for the uncharitable thought.  She loved her friends to death.  But even she sometimes needed some space for herself.

Behind the bar, Mirajane winked at her.  The barmaid had an uncanny way of knowing people’s thoughts, and it felt as if her blue eyes were boring into Lucy’s soul.  “If you ever need anything, Lucy, don’t hesitate to ask the guild!” she chimed in.  “You can even make a request of it, if it’s too large for just your team to handle.”

“Thanks, Mira.  I appreciate that.”  Lucy smiled back at the older woman.  “I love you guys.”

As the night progressed, Lucy received many more congratulations from various guild members, and several further offers of help should she need it.  Even Natsu stirred from his funk, cheering up once he realized that nothing was going to change immediately with his friend.  The poor dragon slayer did not handle change well.

Lucy felt incredibly blessed to have found such a wonderful family.

When she stumbled back to her apartment late that night, she collapsed almost immediately into her bed, and fell into a deep slumber.

* * *

 

The next morning found her nursing a hangover on the train.  Lucy leaned her head against the window, hoping to absorb the coolness into her pounding skull.  _‘This must be how Natsu feels,’_ she thought as her stomach lurched in tune with the train.  _'I should probably stop making fun of him.  This is torture.'_   The clatter as they rolled over the tracks was steady drumroll inside her head.  Mercifully, the train was nearly empty.  Lucy had missed the morning commutes in waking up later than she had intended to.  Getting ready to go had been a chore and a half, even the sound of the zipper on her overnight luggage sending stabbing needles through her brain, but she had managed and was thankfully well on her way.  Even if she did need some headache medicine.  Or a lot of it.

After her brain had been jostled around good and proper by the train, it finally pulled into her station.  Although “station” was a bit of a misnomer – in truth, it was just a raised platform out in the middle of nowhere along the track.  It wasn’t even covered, but for the impossibly tiny ticket booth and outhouse for the one part-time employee.  Who was clearly not on the clock today.  Or tomorrow, most likely, but that wasn’t a problem since at Magnolia station Lucy had made certain to purchase her return trip as well.

The sun beat down on her head, Lucy wincing at the brightness.  With a sigh, she hefted her bag, and climbed down the platform steps to begin the long trek through her family’s former demesne.  She was sweating intensely before long and cursing both the drinking party and how she’d overslept.  This was a far easier journey in the cool of morning and without every plod of her feet threatening to make her hurl her non-existent breakfast that she’d been unable to even look at let alone consume once she’d gotten up but now really, really regretted not eating.

Halfway, she took a break under the shade of a tree.  Cicadas cried all around as she sipped from her water bottle, her headache finally easing off enough that it didn’t make her regret life.  Although it was tempting to keep resting longer, Lucy stood up after a few minutes.  The mansion wasn’t too much further, and so no longer felt like she was actively dying.  Besides which, falling asleep in the shade was a real possibility that Lucy would like to avoid.  A nap in the mansion after a real meal sounded much better.

The walk gave her a lot of time to think, but the sheer _heat_ discouraged it.  And every time Lucy turned her mind towards the problem of what to do with her family’s property, a rock would lodge in her shoe, or a bug would fly up out of the neglected lawn and startle her, or she would get distracted by the omnipresent and heavy _heat_.

By the time she had reached the mansion’s gates, the only thing Lucy had concluded along the walk was that she needed to get some kind of vehicle so she wouldn’t have to make the trip on foot ever again.

Exhausted, Lucy pulled out a keyring and tried for several seconds to use her celestial gate keys to unlock the structure before her error occurred to her and she took out the mundane one.  It opened with a great creaking easily after that.  Now that her goal was within reach, however, her bladder suddenly decided that she needed to use the facilities _immediately_.

Cursing under her breath, Lucy half-jogged across the courtyard and past the fountain (which was flowing and really not helping matters).  She fumbled for a breath with the key to the front door.  Once the lock turned, she wasted no time in rushing to where she remembered the bathroom closest to the entrance being, not even bothering to relock or even close the door behind her.

Only to find, upon flinging the bathroom door wide open, that it was…

_Already occupied._

A man sat upon the toilet, a newspaper in his hands and reading glasses resting upon his nose.  He looked up at her with a frighteningly violet eye, his maroon hair falling across his brow.  “Do you mind?” he said, as Lucy stood there dumbstruck.

“S-sorry,” Lucy stammered out, swiftly shutting the door again.

She stared at the wooden barrier for several seconds, trying frantically to process what she had just seen, and if it was actually a fever-induced dream and she had actually fallen asleep beneath the shady tree after all.

But then her bladder reminded her why she was in such a hurry in the first place, sending her running through the mansion looking for another bathroom.  She blew past a bewildered, pinkish human-shaped blur on her way, shouting, “Bathroom!”

The home inspection she’d paid for had been very thorough, as Lucy had wanted no expense spared in making sure her house was ready for human occupation.  And yet, it appeared as if it had missed one very important fact.

There were squatters in her mansion.

And very familiar ones, at that.


	2. Water

“There are squatters in the property,” Lucy hissed into her portable lacrima from the safety of the bathroom.  “Please explain to me as to how the inspection missed _that!_ ”

On the other end, her real estate agent began to sputter.  “Excuse me, there’s _what_ in your house?”

“Squatters!” Lucy half-cried.  “One of which was actually popping a squat when I found him!  In my bathroom!”

“Squatters?” repeated the agent meekly.

“Yes!”  Lucy inhaled deeply, and then let it out in a great rush.  “Trespassers, home-invaders, what have you.  How did that get missed, exactly?”  A knock on the door echoed in the small space.  “You know what?” Lucy told the stupefied man.  “You get back to me on that, because now I have to go deal with these assholes.”

She hung up and placed her head in her hands.  This was terrible.  This was indescribably horrible.  The only saving grace of the situation was that she recognized the two people she’d seen.  Otherwise, she would have already drawn her keys and blasted Cobra off the damn toilet.

“I heard that!” came a muffled shout from outside the bathroom.

“Good!” Lucy shouted back.  “I hope you realize that you’re an asshole!”

“Was never in debate!  _Ouch!_   Dammit, Meredy!  What was that for?!”

The familiar, sweet voice of the pink-haired woman arose from the other side of the door.  “I’m sorry, Lucy!”

“I’m not!  _Ouch!_   Seriously?!  What is wrong with you?!”

Meredy ignored him.  “I promise there’s an explanation for this!”

With a sigh, Lucy opened the door.  Meredy stood there, apology clear on her face, beside a grumpy Cobra who must have put the reading glasses away somewhere because they were nowhere in evidence now.  “There!” he said, rolling his eye.  “Was that so hard?”

Meredy gave him a swift elbow to the side, paying no attention to his answering hiss.  “Lucy,” she said.  “It’s… it’s good to see you?”

Stepping forward, Lucy hugged the other woman.  “Yes, it’s good to see you, too.  But what are you doing in my house?”

“Living here without permission,” Cobra chimed in, bluntly.  “I thought that was obvious.”

Instead of refuting the statement, Meredy squeezed Lucy back and then stepped away from the embrace.  “Again, I swear there’s a reason.”

“Out with it,” the celestial mage demanded.  “While you’re at it, where’s the rest of your group?”  She held up a finger before Cobra could make another snarky comment.  “Don’t even start with me right now.  I know they’re here, too, I’m a lot stronger than I used to be, and I’ve already wrecked this place a couple of times before.  I have no qualms about doing so again if I get to smash your smug face in.”

“Oooh, scaaaary,” Cobra muttered.

“Where are they, Cobra.”  Lucy wished her glare could turn people to stone like Evergreen.  “I have a few words to say to your fearless leader.”

Cobra snorted, aware of exactly what those words consisted of.  “The others are out right now, but they’ll be back later.  Sorano is the only other one here.”  Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode down the hallway.  “Come on, she’s in the kitchen.”

With no other choice, Lucy followed him.  Meredy tagged along close at her heels.  “Would you buy that we didn’t know it belonged to you?” Meredy asked nervously.

Lucy gestured to a family portrait on the wall as they passed it.

The woman winced.  “Okay, we knew it _used to_ belong to you, but we had no idea that you’d bought it back, I swear!”

At Lucy’s incredulous expression, she took a deep breath, and began to explain.  “Well, you see after Ul and I busted Jellal out of prison, we happened to come upon this place during a storm.  We were able to get in through a window that the storm had ripped off…”

“Excuse me?” Lucy squeaked.  “A storm did _what?_ ”

Meredy nodded, some of the tension draining from her shoulders.  “Ripped the window right out.  It nearly hit us, actually.  So we took shelter in here that night.  I swear we didn’t know at first – there was no power because of the storm so we couldn’t really see much in here.”

“You had to have figured it out sometime,” Lucy said, as they entered the kitchen.  She raised a hand in greeting to Sorano, sitting at the small staff eating table with a sandwich halfway to her mouth.  “Hello, Sorano.  So what happened after that, Meredy?”

Sorano peered at her fellow celestial mage, the blonde woman taking a seat with her.  Her gaze flickered back and forth between Lucy, Cobra, and Meredy in silent, confused entreaty.

Meredy gave her an apologetic glance, and then turned to Lucy, sitting down next to her.  “We stayed here a few more times after that,” she admitted.  “We were on the run, no one lived here anymore, and there was power and running water.  Your father had already started his life as a merchant, there were barely any buyer prospects coming by, and you were… lost, on Tenrou.”  Shrugging slightly, she continued, “We used this place as a sort of… home base, I guess.”

“And not much changed once _we_ joined,” Cobra stated, leaning on the counter next to the fridge.  “I would warn everyone else if a showing was about to happen, and we’d clear out for the afternoon.  Other than that, it was a pretty sweet deal.”

“Which begs the question,” hissed Sorano, “as to why you didn’t say a word _this_ time!”

“I was on the toilet!” he protested.  “What more do you want from me?”

Lucy placed her head in her hands.  This was not how she pictured life with her home back would go.  Loneliness, she had anticipated.  Gutted rooms, ghosts of the past around every corner.  Maybe even finding some hidden water damage left over from when she and Aquarius accidentally flooded the third floor when Lucy was a child.

What she had not predicted, was that a group of seven formerly wanted mages would be living rent free within the building.  “And once you guys were pardoned?  Why didn’t you leave, then?”

The three grimaced, but it was Cobra, not Meredy, that responded to the question.  “Do you really think people were all that willing to rent to us?  Or that it was easy for us to find legitimate work?”

He had a point, but anger stirred still inside Lucy’s chest.

Meredy patted her back soothingly.  “I’m sorry, Lucy.  If we had known, we would have cleared out and you never would have known the difference.”

The celestial mage sighed, and then raised her head to look into the other woman’s pleading eyes.  “Give me one of whatever Sorano’s got, and I’ll consider forgiving you.”

* * *

 

Lucy felt immensely better after she’d gotten some food into her stomach, and she was beginning to see the upside to having Crime Sorciere living in the mansion all this time.  Meredy was able to give her a pretty precise idea of what family valuables still remained after the creditors had swept through.  She hadn’t gotten a great look at it all when she’d been here before, and it at least gave her some notion of where to begin looking for specific items.  A game plan was already formulating in her head as to how to box up what she needed to, and whether she would need to restore others.  Sadly, Lucy knew she did not have the funds to hunt down the things that were gone forever, like her mother’s old jewelry or her father’s rare book collection.  Those were long gone and sold off by the creditors along with countless other mementos.

As it was starting to heat up in the kitchen even with its superior ventilation, Lucy decided to call it good.  “Can you guys point me in the direction of a bedroom that doesn’t have a whole lot of dust?”

“Most of the bedrooms are in good shape,” Meredy informed her.  “They had a cleaning service through here a couple of weeks ago.”

“And that didn’t raise a warning flag with you guys?” questioned Lucy.

The three collectively shrugged.  “They come through here every once in a while to clean the place,” Cobra stated.  “Didn’t think much of it at the time.  It’s not like they were told that the place was selling.”

“Surely the inspector could have clued you in…?”

Sorano gave her a half-hearted shrug.  “There’s been some near purchases before.  We weren’t confident that it would go through this time, either.”

“And why’s that, exactly?”

“We did a fairly good job of convincing them that the place was haunted.”

Lucy’s mouth fell open at Sorano’s confession.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Cobra said with a grin.  “It was never purchased until now because of us.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I thank _you_ , Cobra,” Lucy hissed at him.

“Is that a challenge?”

Sorano slammed her open palms down on the kitchen table, startling Lucy and Cobra with the sound.  She pushed herself to her feet and shook her head at the duo.  “Look, Erik, I realize how much fun it is to push her buttons, but it’s way too goddamn hot for that right now.  So stuff it.”

“Stuff it up your ass, you albino turkey,” Cobra responded, grouchy at having his fun ruined.

As the two descended into bickering, Lucy cast an inquisitive look at Meredy, who shrugged helplessly.  “They’re always like this,” she informed the celestial mage.  “It’s hard to tell beneath all of the arguing, but I’m fairly sure they love each other.  You know – sibling stuff.  What’s really funny though is when they drag Macbeth into their fights, and Richard feels compelled to stop them.”

Lucy couldn’t help but snort at the mental imagery.  “They sound like Gray and Natsu, honestly.”

Both Sorano and Cobra rounded on Lucy.  “You take that back!” they demanded in unison.

“You see?”  Lucy gestured at them but addressed Meredy.  “Exactly the same.”

Meredy giggled, glancing over at her steaming friends.  “I think I see it now.”

“Et tu, Meredy?” Sorano grumbled.

Suddenly, the pink-haired woman brightened.  “Oh, I have a wonderful idea!  Why don’t we all swim in that one pond?  It’s only a few minutes from here, and it would cool us down.”

“I think I remember that pond,” Lucy mused aloud.  Although, when she’d known it, it had been full of leeches.  But maybe those had been gotten rid of?  Meredy sounded as if she’d gone swimming there before.  “But what’s wrong with the pool?”

“It was drained a while back,” Cobra explained.  Mischief glittered in his eye.  “Needs to be cleaned, too.

Lucy nodded.  “Yeah, okay.  That makes sense.  Let’s go to the pond, then.”

* * *

 

The pond had _not_ been cleared of leeches, as it turned out.

The group found themselves back at the mansion in short order, dripping wet and miserable.

“Just wait until they’re done drinking,” advised Cobra with a grin.  “Once they’re full, they just roll right off.  Or so I’ve been told.”

“You’re an ass,” Lucy informed him, which only made his grin wider.  “You waited until we went in to see what would happen, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.”  He snorted at her.  “Do I look stupid to you?”

“No, just half-blind.”

Instead of angering him, Lucy’s words glanced right off.  “Right.  Well, you all have fun with the leeches.”  He then walked off, laughing at their plight.

Sorano’s eyes narrowed at his retreat.  “I say we dump these guys in his bed, see how he likes the surprise.”

“I heard that!”

As the white-haired woman started swearing, Meredy gave Lucy a small smile.  “At least we’re cooled down now, right?”

“I think that’s more from the blood loss than the water.”  With a gesture at the courtyard fountain, Lucy suggested, “How about we just use the fountain to cool down from now on?”

Water ran down the side of Meredy’s face, but Lucy couldn’t tell if it was from the pond, or if it was sweat.  “Yeah.  That sounds like a safer plan.”

A sudden wave of dizziness overtook Lucy, forcing her to grab hold of Meredy’s shoulder to keep from falling over.  “Um… I think I’m going to go lie down for a few minutes,” she told her.  “And then I’m going to… give Wendy a call.  You know.  Just in case.”


	3. Invite

After a very upset sky dragon slayer had chewed her out over the leeches, Lucy made sure to follow her friend’s orders about taking a shower (because pond gunk was a thing and so was necrotizing fasciitis) and staying hydrated (to replenish her body’s liquids), Lucy decided that a nap was in order.  It had been a long, trying day thus far for her.  Any one of the things that had occurred to her were enough to ruin even a saint’s mood.

Lucy now lay beneath the cool, crisp sheets of one of the former guest rooms in the building.  Her old room held too many memories to bear inspecting for the ones that had been removed.  And really, the mansion had no shortage of spare rooms given that it had once housed an entire estate’s worth of staff in addition to several reserved bedrooms and bathrooms for visiting guests.  It was really too much empty space, Lucy couldn’t help but think.  She had assumed that the building would feel smaller to her now that she was an adult.  But now, staring up at the ceiling in a room that had no personality even before the creditors made off with most of the moveable furniture and paintings?  Somehow, Lucy felt as if she were a child once more, in a place with too few people, and too much emptiness.

It was suffocating.

Funny, she hadn’t noticed it earlier.  Crime Sorciere had a way of… filling a space with their presence.

Unable to sleep in the room, Lucy threw off the sheets and padded on bare feet through the darkened room.  She opened the door and peeked into the hallway.  Empty.  All the lights were off, as was Crime Sorciere’s habit over their years of unlawful residency.  Really, it was a stunning testament to how little the bank had paid attention to the property if the former dark wizards could manage that kind of lifestyle as long as they had without detection.  Lucy would have assumed that even a _small_ spike in the utilities would have alerted _someone_.

Lucy wandered down the dim hallway, letting her instinct guide which path she took.  Before she knew it, she was standing before a door she knew well.  Her lips quirked upward in a half-smile.  Pushing the doors open, she stepped into her father’s old study.  Books lined the walls, all of them too common to merit being removed by the creditors or bank for resale.  The last time she’d been in this room, it had been damaged by fighting.  She was pleased to see that her money she’d forked over had been well spent in the repairs.  It hardly looked like anything had ever occurred in the room, let alone what Lucy’s mind was replaying for her.

“Oh, Lucy.  Hello.”

The sound of another person’s voice startled her out of her memories, her heart beating rapidly in her chest.  She looked up and smiled at the blue-haired man perusing the bookshelves.  “Jellal,” she replied.  “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s not a problem.  Did you sleep well?  Erik told me about the leeches.”

Sweat ran down the back of Lucy’s neck.  “Yeah, not my finest moment there.  I’m feeling better now, but I couldn’t fall asleep.  So I thought I’d walk around a bit.”

Stepping back from the bookshelf, Jellal awkwardly held up a book.  “I hope you don’t mind our use of this room.”

Lucy shook her head.  “Not at all.  It would be sad if they were never read for all of these years.”

A tentative smile spread across his face, and his brown eyes lit up.  “That’s good to hear.  All of us like this room quite a bit.  Growing up, none of us really had access to so many books.  Well, Ultear did, and I had use of the Council library for a while, but not so much the others.”

If she had been asked years ago how she felt about hearing that the Oracion Seis loved her father’s library, Lucy might have blown a fuse in her brain.  But now… the thought of them all gathered in the room, reading the collection of a man they had once manipulated, felt strangely surreal.  Not in a bad way, though.  “I’m happy that you guys got some enjoyment out of them.”

Jellal’s eyes slid away from hers, shame hovering over his features like a dark cloud.  “I owe you an apology.  I should have told you long ago that we were staying here.  I had many opportunities to do so, but I always let my anxiety get in the way.  It was reprehensible of me.  I’m very sorry for trespassing in your family home, and never telling you about it.  You deserve better from us – and from me – than that.”

The celestial mage observed him for a long moment.  Now that her initial anger over the situation had cooled off, she couldn’t really say that she minded all that much anymore.  It hadn’t been her home for a long time; in truth, it had ceased to be one long before it had passed out of her father’s possession.  And how could the topic even be broached in casual conversation, anyway?  _‘Oh by the way, I’ve been living in your childhood home that your parents built with all of your childhood possessions for years free of cost, I hope you don’t mind.’_

Okay, maybe she still minded.  Just a smidge.

Lucy let out a sigh, and then smiled at Jellal.  “Thank you.  I appreciate you saying that.”

He met her gaze once more.  “I still feel like it’s inadequate, though, since it comes on the heels of being caught rather than said of my own volition.”

To his surprise, his statement garnered a laugh out of Lucy.  “I see you’ve been paying attention to the books on conflict resolution!”

A flush crept into Jellal’s cheeks.  “I might have read a few of them.  They’ve been really helpful.”

“Well, out of everyone who could have possibly have been living in my house, I’m kind of relieved that it was you guys,” Lucy confessed, moved into speaking as openly as Jellal was.  “I think…”  she hesitated for a brief moment.  “I think you guys feel more at home here than I do, actually.  Or rather, it becomes one with all of you in it.”

_That could work._

That thought hit her like a blow from Erza’s hammer, knocking the wind right out of her chest.  It was a crazy idea, of course.  But then again, when _wasn’t_ anything borderline insane when a member of Fairy Tail was involved?  It would neatly solve all of her problems.  Her money situation, a use for the huge property, it even provided an answer for how to juggle her homelife and worklife going forward.

The trouble was, if Crime Sorciere had been living in the building for free for so long, what were the chances they’d even consider it?  Lucy didn’t have any clue as to the strength of their financial situation, or if she was allowed to offer it to them.  However, she didn’t remember anything in her mortgage contract _expressly_ forbidding her from doing it.  And again, this was a handy solution for her own problems, while making full use of the property as it was meant to be.  Crime Sorciere would benefit from it in the long run as well.

Before she knew it, a smile had spread across her face.  “Say, Jellal,” she began, the blue-haired man gazing at her curiously.  “You guys are an official guild now, right?  Recognized by the Magic Council?”

“Yeah, we are.”

“I have to ask, why have you guys never made an official guild headquarters?”  This was a question that had plagued her for years, actually.  It had never seemed polite to inquire, so Lucy had left the issue alone.  If there was any time suited to prying into Crime Sorciere’s affairs, though, now was the time to do so.

Jellal grimaced in response to her words.  “Although we’ve been officially pardoned by the Magic Council, and the Fioran government allows us to walk around freely as well, most people are exactly… accommodating for mass murderers.  No matter how reformed we might be.  It’s pretty difficult to find anyone willing to lease us a place, or even get jobs.  Mostly we rely on the Magic Council for work.”  He shrugged.  “There’s never any shortage of dark wizards, and they’re happy to have people willing to get their hands dirty on their behalf.”

Yeah, that sounded like the Council.

“I take it that’s the real reason you live here, then,” Lucy shrewdly observed.  “No need to pass a background check if you’re trespassing.”

“More or less,” he admitted.  “Although, truth be told if we were ever caught and arrested, our previously vacated sentences would be doubled instead.  It was a risk we were willing to take, all the same.”

Nodding, Lucy contemplated his words.  “It’s a good thing it was me who found out, then.  I have no intention of taking you guys to the cops.”  She winked at him.  “Technically it wasn’t me who owned the place while you were living here, anyway.  But, that brings up the point of what you’re going to do now.”

“Don’t worry.”  Jellal let out a nervous laugh.  “We’ll get our stuff out of your way shortly.  Then we’ll try the housing and rental markets again.  They’ve probably improved a bit over the past few years; our chances might be better this time around.”

“Or!” Lucy interrupted, grinning now in earnest.  “What if I had a proposition for you?”

Jellal’s expression turned wary, his eyebrows knitting together.  He knew her well enough by now to know when to tread lightly.  The mansion and the surrounding land had to have been extremely pricy, far too high for Lucy to afford normally with the destructive forces of her team working against her.  And yet, here she was – the owner of it all.  When Lucy put her mind to something, very little could successfully stand in her way.  “What sort of proposition?” he asked, feeling a bit like the devil was about to invite him to bet his soul on a game of poker.

Her fingers steepled in front of her like her father’s used to right before closing a deal, Lucy’s eyes glimmered with repressed glee.  “Here’s the thing.  I have no idea what to do with this place.  I never really thought much about what would happen if I ever managed to acquire enough money to buy it.  Now that I have, I’m finding myself at a bit of a loss.  I could move in, of course.  But this is a lot of house for just one person, right?  And I also have a job I like and a life in Magnolia.”

Understanding began to creep into Jellal’s countenance, and he nodded slightly.

“So here’s the idea.  You rent this place from me.  That way, you won’t have to move out, or creep around it.  It would be yours to do what you want with.  Honestly, I’m satisfied just having the title to it in my name, but it would be a waste if nothing was ever done with it.  My mortgage on the place would get paid, and maybe I could even get a bit of extra pocket money in my account as well.”

Jellal blinked once, then twice more, stunned into silence by what she was offering.  “That’s… exceptionally generous of you,” he stammered.  “I’m… I’m not sure what to say.”

A deep-seated laugh burst from the blonde mage.  “How about I draw up a potential contract, and then we discuss terms?”  She extended her hand to him.

He considered it, and then took her hand and gave it a firm shake.  “I think that sounds like a wonderful idea.  But I have something to ask.”  Dropping her hand, he looked her square in the eyes.  “How would you feel about… alterations?”

“Depends.”  It was Lucy’s turn to eye Jellal with curiosity.  “What kind were you thinking of?”

Jellal strode to the door, raising his hands in the air close together.  Then he made a sweeping gesture and twisted his head to look at her with the largest grin she’d ever seen on his face.

“Crime Sorciere Guild Hall,” he told her.  “With plenty of room to grow.  What do you think of that?”

“I think we can work something out,” replied Lucy.  “Now let’s talk terms…”


	4. Pyramid

Lucy contemplated the plans spread out on the kitchen table before her. It had somehow become their default spot for negotiation and planning, though in part that was mostly due to it being one of the only large, flat elevated surfaces left in the mansion. Three pieces of glassware held the corners of the drawing secure and still as she inspected it, the fourth weighed down by Macbeth's slumbering form.

There was a lot that needed to be done, it turned out, to turn a building into a functioning guild hall.

It also took a lot to turn Crime Sorciere's present organization into a properly functioning guild model, for that matter.

Groaning, Lucy sank into her seat, plunking her head into the table in imitation of Macbeth. "Why is this so difficult?" she wailed into the paper.

"Because everything in life is," Cobra responded behind her.

Lucy raised her head, and turned slightly in order to level her fiercest glare at the dragon slayer.

He scoffed at her. "Is that the best you got?"

"No," she grumbled as he sat down in the chair next to her. "I'm just too exhausted to deal with you right now."

"So what's the problem today?" he inquired, peering over the plans. "None of this makes much sense to me, but I'll give it a shot."

"How generous of you," Lucy replied sarcastically. Despite her words, she straightened up in her seat, and pointed at the upper floor of the mansion. "We need to decide how many rooms we want to keep as bedrooms, and how many we want to convert to other purposes. Which means figuring out whether you all wish to live here full time as the founding guild members, or do a kind of live-in plan for new members. I think Jellal is working out the particulars with the Council, but I think he wants to turn this place into a kind of halfway house for rehabilitating mages like yourselves that have run afoul of the law. It's a good idea, and I'm not against the property being used for that."

That last part was a little bit of a white lie, and one that Cobra surely picked up on, but in a rare display of kindness, chose to ignore. "So what's the problem, then?" he asked.

" _Money._ " Lucy sighed heavily. "I've already got a huge mortgage on this place, as I'm sure you're aware. There's no way I can secure a construction loan on top of it. Jellal was able to pony up a security deposit and first month's rent when we signed the rental contract, but unless I go on a well-paid job soon, we won't be able to afford even the smallest change to this place." She shrugged helplessly. "And you know what my team is like, so saving money is a little difficult for me as it is, even without me dividing my time up between them and this place."

Cobra hummed in thought, his eye darting over the plans and taking in the proposed alterations. "Wouldn't it be up to us to pay for it? Since we're the ones that need the place changed."

"Eh." Lucy held up her hand and made a wobbly gesture with it. "Yes and no. It's my property, so capital expenditures are mine to deal with, and fixtures required for business are yours. Which is... which is where things get a little nebulous." She heaved another sigh and rubbed her temple with her fingers. "Neither Jellal nor I really want to hire a lawyer to sort it out on our behalf, but it's beginning to look like that will be necessary in the long run. Though it'll all be moot anyway if I can't drum up enough money to hire one in the first place."

"Sounds tough," Cobra stated. "How does a traditional guild make money, by the way? Brain's flow of income was never exactly obvious to the rest of us, and we weren't interested besides, so I don't really have a frame of reference."

His interest in the matter perked Lucy's spirits up slightly. "It's kind of like a pyramid structure," she told him. Reaching down to the pile of supplies by her feet, she placed a blank sheet of paper onto a clipboard and drew a triangle on it.

"I thought those were bad things," Cobra muttered as he watched her draw.

"Pyramid schemes are a pretty common way of scamming people, it's true," agreed Lucy. "But they're also pretty useful for displaying money flow." She drew two horizontal lines near the top of the triangle, sectioning off two small sections. In the bottom, largest section, she wrote  _Guild Members._

She tapped that section with her pen. "As you're probably aware, in a typical guild structure a job is posted with a set reward, which the guild members take and earn upon completion. What most people don't realize, is that the monetary amount posted on the job is not actually the full amount being paid out." To the side of the pyramid, she scribbled  _Clients_  and wrote  _1,200 Jewel_  under it, and then circled both. "Say a client is willing to pay 1,200 Jewel for a job. Of that amount, 1,000 will be posted as the reward on a job flyer, while 200 will be retained by the guild as payment for coordination services. In addition, clients will also pay a small posting fee." Lucy wrote a plus sign and 50 under the 1,200 Jewel she inscribed earlier. Then she labeled the middle section  _Guild_  and wrote in  _250 Jewel_  below it, and then added  _1000 Jewel_  to the  _Guild Members_  section.

Glancing up, she asked, "Following me so far?"

"Sure," Cobra said, his gaze still intent on her makeshift diagram. "But what's the upper section of the pyramid for?"

Lucy drew a vertical line down the middle of the final section, labeling one half  _Era_  and the other  _Gov._  "Guilds have to pay fees and taxes to both the country they're located in, and to Era for services provided. These fees and taxes go towards services for mages, and they form a large part of Era's operating budget from what Levy and Mest have told me."

Cobra thought about it for a moment. "I guess that makes sense."

"There's more," Lucy warned him, and restrained a giggle at his resulting sigh. "For simplicity's sake, let's say that the amounts due the government and Era are fixed at 5,000 Jewel each." Outside of the pyramid, Lucy wrote in  _5,000_  Jewel on each side since she hadn't left enough room in the diagram itself. "So basically, the Guild has to make enough money to pay off those obligations, and make enough to fund repairs to guild halls, or providing other things for mages. Fairy Tail has a souvenir shop and a bar with a kitchen to help supplement the income from the jobs, but the margin of profit on both is actually very small if I understood Max correctly when he explained all of this to me."

Holding up a finger, Lucy waggled it at Cobra. "But there's actually a second structure that some guilds use instead of this one."

"Seriously?" Cobra muttered. "Isn't just having one confusing enough?"

"Apparently some guilds combine the two methods as well," Lucy informed him. "Which I imagine makes the guild accountants cry."

"I don't blame them. So what's the other method?"

"The guild members pay a monthly fee to the guild, and keep all of the job reward. I think there's still a posting fee that the guilds retain, but yeah the members get to keep everything. If they don't go on jobs, though, they run the risk of incurring a large debt to their guild, however, so I'm not particularly fond of this method."

"Wouldn't you run much the same risk the other way, though?" Cobra pointed out. "If you don't go on jobs, you won't have money for your bills anyway."

"I guess you have a point," Lucy acknowledged. "I guess it kind of depends on personal preference." She smiled at him. "So… how does Crime Sorciere handle its finances?"

Cobra shrugged. "Communal fund, maybe? I'm not sure. Jellal keeps track of it all in his head, so I try to tune him out when he starts thinking too much on it. Usually when one of us needs something, we just ask Jellal to fork over the Jewels for it."

Lucy blinked at him, a little gob smacked. "And that…  _works_  for everyone…?" she ventured.

"Pretty much, yeah." When her stunned silence continued for longer than he liked, Cobra added, "Listen, it's not like we've ever had proper spending money of our own with how we grew up. I doubt we'd know how to manage it, honestly."

Pursing her lips, Lucy frowned. "Call me strange, but even if you do make mistakes with your income, it's still yours to make the mistakes with. Financial autonomy is a pretty important thing to have, you know?"

Cobra shrugged. "If you say so."

Seeing that she wasn't going to be able to press issue further with Cobra, Lucy decided to let it go for now. "Alright, it's your decision to make. But maybe we should look into hiring a guild accountant before anything else, yeah? That way Jellal doesn't have to… to keep it all in his head."

"You're surprised by that," Cobra observed with delight, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "What, is that something the great Heartfilia Heiress can't manage herself?"

"Hell no." Lucy laughed at Cobra's taken aback expression over her blunt, honest answer. "It's a lot to keep track of. I hire an accountant to go over my personal taxes every year."

"Do you make them cry?" Cobra asked, his smile returning.

Lucy hesitated a second too long without responding, resulting in Cobra letting out a great laugh that filled the kitchen. "You do, don't you?!" he howled with laughter.

Giggles filled Lucy as she, reluctantly, admitted that Cobra had her pegged. "Okay, you've got me there. In my defense, my life is an utter mess. So the accountant really should have realized that my finances would be, too."

"However you wanna justify it to yourself."

A groan emanated from the third occupant of the kitchen, the fourth paperweight on Lucy's plans of the mansion. "You two are too noisy," Macbeth complained.

"Sorry," Lucy apologized to her former enemy. "If you prefer, I can return to talking about finances. Maybe that will put you back to sleep?"

Her suggestion only sent Cobra into a greater fit of laughter than before and set her to grinning in wicked delight as well. Macbeth sent Lucy a disgusted look before standing up and stalking out of the kitchen.

Privately, Lucy had to admit that Cobra had a nice laugh.

Suddenly, Cobra's laughter ceased entirely. "Wait a minute," he said. "So how is it that Fairy Tail makes any money?" He waved her off when she opened her mouth to repeat her earlier lecture. "No, no. I get the basic system. But with Fairy Tail having to pay all sorts of damages and fines, how are they able to make enough money to keep the guild going?"

Lucy hesitated. Her first instinct was to propose the bar and souvenir shop's proceeds to make up the deficit, but then she remembered how little profit those endeavors actually made. In fact, the bar's proceeds largely came from the members of Fairy Tail themselves. Some of whom had racked up a significant unpaid tab. Then, with all of the furniture that the members regularly destroyed… Lucy had never heard of the guild members being forced to pay back the guild for any damages to guild property. Somehow, Makarov had pulled together enough funds to completely redo the place as well back when she first joined.

"For that matter," Cobra continued, either oblivious to the gears turning in Lucy head, or uninterested, "how is it that Fairy Tail can get away with destroying so many towns and such with pretty much no repercussions? You'd think somebody would be pissed about their home being gone."

Although she wished she could deny it, the fact of Fairy Tail's destructive leanings was extremely common knowledge. It was hard to reconcile how much Fairy Tail obliterated with the height of the guild's popularity.

"It… it creates construction jobs…?" Lucy offered tentatively. "Puts that back into the economy…?"

Cobra stared at her dead-on, his single violet eye unblinking. "Is Fairy Tail getting…"

It was Lucy's turn to cut him off. "Let's not finish that thought."

He considered it for a moment, but eventually nodded. "That sounds safer, yeah." Briefly shaking himself, he then shrugged and changed the subject. "You hungry?"

"Starving."

With that, the two tried their hardest to put their lingering suspicions out of their minds.


End file.
